Have you heard the big news today? There’s a gargantuan tie-up in the tech industry. No, we’re not talking about Micro-hoo. But it does involve two equally prominent brands. It’s Google and Virgin joining forces on Project Virgle, a new venture to  colonise Mars in 2050…. But first they need to agree on how to pronounce the venture. Is it  pronounced VUR-gull as Richard Branson calls it or is it pronounced "Project VER-jull" as Sergey Brin says? Do we care?

If you forgot today was April Fool’s Day for even a second, the comedians on the Web have brought out all their pie-in-the-face gags to spread a little levity, including:

• TechCrunch is suing Facebook for $25 million for… (to be honest, it’s so un-clever, I gave up one paragraph into the epic faux story; except one blogger fell for it. How is that possible?)
• Arrington keeps us rolling in the aisles with this one too: TechCrunch is buying Tiger Beat and renaming it CrunchKids. Ok, that’s a bit better. A bit.
• And Dell is — wait for it, wait for it — laying off 8,800 in a… Wait a second. That’s true. And not very funny… Well, at least it’s not another £10 billion write-off for incredibly reckless exposure to the dodgiest loans on the planet. There were no whoopy cushions on seats at that UBS board meeting, no doubt.

With April Fool’s Day, the Net has made a day of high jinks into a global gag fest. That’s okay with me. As long as its legitimately clever. But do we really need a whole day set aside for these pranks?  I’m with "James" who comments on the fake TechCrunch-Facebook lawsuit story:

I hate April Fools’ day on the internet.

Cheer up, James. It’s almost over.
– Bernhard